The latest report prepared for the Broadband Forum by research firm Point Topic, reveals that the total number of broadband subscribers globally has reached a whopping 400 million. The report also specifies that the tremendous growth in subscribers is due to technological developments and increased geographical spread. 

If compared, back in the year 1998, there were only 57,200 broadband subscribers globally, in the following 12 months; they increased nearly six fold reaching up to 280,890 in 1999. The customers prefer fast speed broadband connection the most, and reportedly there has been 600,000% increase in the number of subscribers in the past ten years, with a 300% increase in the last five years alone, to now reach 400mn. 

Washington, Nov 22: For today’s 20-somethings, communication has been restricted to social networking sites like Facebook and iPhones, making it difficult for them to deal with face-to-face interactions.

London, Nov 20: Iran has blocked access to more than five million Internet sites because they are immoral and anti-social,” according to reports.

The Iranian ban includes many news sites, Sky News reported.

Internet service providers have been told over the years to block access to political, human rights and women’s sites, as well as anything deemed pornographic or anti-Islamic.

The country’s 21 million Internet users will now also be prevented from viewing weblogs expressing dissent, along with popular sites as Facebook and YouTube.

Melbourne, Nov 20: Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, which have millions of users, are being used by extremist groups to recruit members, experts have warned.

Many experts have claimed that extremist groups use such sites to influence people via Web 2.0 tools like blogs, social networks, video sites and instant messaging.

"(These websites) are the ''killer apps'' of the internet today, and they''re used by millions, but the virus of hate certainly has infected those technologies," News. com. au quoted Christopher Wolf, chair of the International Network Against CyberHate (INACH), as telling the Global Summit on Internet Hate Speech.

Washington, November 18: A team of researchers from the University of Washington and Adobe Systems Inc. have unveiled an intuitive application called Zoetrope, with which an Internet user can easily search out old data.

"Your browser is really just a window into the Web as it exists today. When you search for something online, you''re only getting today''s results," said Eytan Adar, a University of Washington computer science and engineering doctoral student.